


Outrunning Entropy

by pududoll (aprilclash)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angel/Human Relationships, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 20:41:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16961103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aprilclash/pseuds/pududoll
Summary: Yukhei meets an angel in that dirty alley behind the old laundromat and ends up adopting him.





	Outrunning Entropy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mqrkhyuck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mqrkhyuck/gifts).



> kofi ficlet for twt user mqrkhyuck who prompted me: supernatural!au luren but where renjun is an angel who fell and yukhei, a normal mortal, finds him discarded on the ground. make sure he’s okay and buys him burgers.  
> I wish I could've written more but it already took me almost three months to write this ;; I hope you like it even though I kinda interpretated the prompt freely, and thank you for the kofi ♥

The universe curls around the cul-de-sac at the end of the street, between an old looking bicycle and the half-shut cage of an abandoned workshop. The ways of the Lord are infinite, the people on this tiny planet say. And they are. Oh, they are. Even now, in the middle of a lurid back alley, graffiti scribbled on the walls and brothel flyers abandoned on the ground, heaven is just a step away. It could be so easy to take that single step and bask in the warmth of the eternal boulevards, but Renjun has no intention to.

Most people think that when angels fall, they crash. What a fucking joke.

Falling from grace is not painful. It's more like a realization, an enlightenment. It's realizing you've always lived under a glass bell, chained to an ideal that fades like a mirage under the sun of the mortal world. God's grace is blinding and everything it leaves behind is the darkness of eyes that cannot see, but Renjun doesn't want to blindly follow. Renjun wants... He wants... He _wants_ , for starters, and that's already a sin.

"Do you want anything else?"

Renjun stops and blinks, startled by the sudden words, and a salaryman bumps into him and goes his own way after almost throwing him to the ground. He was so solid, physical, heavy, and this body Renjun has taken over is tiny and warm and fragile, a complicated puzzle of warm flesh and blood, always twitching, always restless, pulsing from within to keep his soul anchored to it.

"You shouldn't space out like that."

Renjun finally turns to stare at the tall boy next to him. He has big eyes, Wong Yukhei, and big hands, and very long legs and arms and a pretty mouth. Renjun doesn't know what pretty is, but the girls waiting at the bus stop are staring and giggling and that must mean something. What Renjun knows is that Yukhei's soul is beautiful, untainted. And his hands are warm, especially now, as they curl around Renjun's wrist - the wrist of the body Renjun is using - to tug him closer, away from the flock of people invading the sidewalk now that the traffic light is blinking green.

"Are you even listening to me?" Yukhei asks, a hint of disbelief and frustration in his voice.

"Of course I am," Renjun says, his voice crackling at the edges like a dry leaf lying on the curb.

Yukhei doesn't seem convinced, so he repeats everything slowly.

"I asked if you want something else," he says, pointing at the egg waffle he bought for Renjun at a food stall three streets ago. "You haven't touched it."

Renjun frowns. Was he supposed to? He's never been really well versed in human courtesy. Until a couple of hours ago he thought humans still crawled around naked because that's what they did the last time he visited this planet. Moaning, frolicking, barely more than animals. It is strange to conciliate that memory with the crippling reality of this boy called Yukhei standing next to him in a worn out parka and a fluffy wool hat. It's strange to conciliate everything Renjun has ever known about humans with everything Yukhei is, but at the end of the day it doesn't really matter. Renjun is lost and so, so close, but so, so far away from home, and Yukhei bought food for him. Human food maybe, but food Renjun's body can't help but welcome, and his eyes are kind and just a little worried. Renjun bites the waffle and chews it slowly, and only then Yukhei nods and smiles again. It makes Renjun feel oddly warm.

"So, did you run away from home?"

"Yeah... You could... say that."

The taste of the waffle suddenly explodes in Renjun's brain and his eyes widen, the corners of his mouth lifting in... he doesn't know... delight? It's sweet, like lies and laughter. Renjun loves it. He shouldn't, he really shouldn't, but he loves it. And why shouldn't he? He can't go back, not anymore. Not after knowing how sweet waffles are and how pretty humans can be under the flashing lights of a city that never sleeps.

"And do you have a name?" Yukhei asks, again, seizing Renjun up and down.

"Renjun," he answers, too fast not to be suspicious.

"No surname, hm?"

Not really, but Renjun can't really tell Yukhei who he is. What he is.

They walk around the neighborhood and Renjun finishes his waffle and thinks about how easy it would be to just snap his fingers and get everyone on this goddamn city to bring him a waffle, but he promised himself to lay low, not attract too much attention. Besides, who needs magical superpowers when Yukhei just asks him if he wants another one?

~

Yukhei meets the angel in that dirty alley behind the old laundromat that closed six years ago, when he was in middle school still. He used to smoke with his friends there, trying to look cool whenever one of the girls from the nearby private school walked by and stole a curious glance at them. They never stopped to make conversation with one of those boys their mothers surely warned them about, but staring was free and so they stared.

It's been years since those days. Now Yukhei works the afternoon shift at a shady karaoke bar in Sai Ying Pun and spends his night hunting ghouls, vengeful spirits and the occasional unruly minor gods with Kun- _ge_ , though they usually end up calling Sicheng for those. It's not every day that he goes back to Kowloon, where he grew up with his grandfather in a box-sized apartment they shared with another family of hunters - the Qians expats from the mainland - but for once he's glad he gave in the to nostalgia.

The angel is tiny. Well, his body is tiny, but Yukhei can see the expanse of his wings, shadows so thick they're almost corporeal, quivering against the filthy walls surrounding them. He almost takes a step back - he should take a step back, because what does he know about angels? Not even Sicheng is equipped to take one down in a fight, angels are just _that_ out of their reach - but then the angel blinks and the darkness around him disappears, leaving behind a boy who is young and lost and tiny and incredibly stubborn. In need of help and unable to ask for it. Yukhei takes a step forward instead.

"Hey, do you need help?"

The boy - the angel - blinks again, and it's like the light around them falters every time his lashes flutter against his pale cheeks. There is no answer, so Yukhei steps a little closer, cautiously, like he would approach a wounded animal. He would normally run away, turn on his heels and put as much distance as possible between his frail human body and one of the strongest creature who could have ever stepped on this plane of the universe, but the angel looks tired, almost scared. Alien, like angels are bound to be, and lonely, and Yukhei has always had a penchant for lost causes.

"Sorry, it's not my business but... is everything alright, buddy?"

Dark eyes - too much black, too much black - suddenly focus on him, and he swallows, trying to unclench his throat.

"I mean, okay, I'm clearly disturbing you so I'll just... go?"

Time to flee. Hence someone finds his charred corpse in this alley tomorrow morning. (His grandfather would come back from the grave to haunt Kun for letting his stupid grandson die like that.) Except, as soon as Yukhei takes a step backwards, the angel makes a strange face, half-grimace half-mbarrassment, as his stomach releases a shamelessly loud, painfully awkward growl of hunger.

They look at each other for a moment, and Yukhei is sure the boy's frozen expression is mirroring his own. Oh, fuck this, he's buying the angel an egg waffle if it's the last thing he does.

~

"So you just, like, found him on the side of the streets? Xuxi, are you crazy?"

In the living room, they can hear Renjun suck loudly on the cup of caramel macchiato Yukhei bought for him. When Yukhei left him, he was kicking his feet down because the chair was too tall for his tiny body. His fault, Yukhei faintly thinks, he should've moved into a slightly taller body. He distractedly wonders if angel have some kind of saying in what kind of human they get to possess when they come from the other side, or if they even care about stuff like that, but his train of thought is violently broken when Kun gets ahold of the collar of his shirt and brings him down until they're at the same height, shaking him violently.

"Are you listening to me? This is not a game, you can't bring a... a..."

Oh dear, he can't even say that.

"Relax _ge_ ," he says, trying to appear chill even if a couple of hours ago he was as scared shitless as Kun is now. "We don't even believe in god, what could he do to us?"

"An angel of the the Lord is sitting in my living room, how can you say you don't believe in the Lord?"

"I have a very simple mind," is Yukhei's answer, coupled with a shrug. Kun's face turns purple but he doesn't say anything. He and Yukhei grew up sharing two meters of space their whole teenager life, which means he's used to deal with Yukhei's antics, but still the idea of an angel drinking coffee in his house turns him unnecessarily antsy.

"Does he knows?" he asks, when he's calm enough.

"What?"

"That you know, Xuxi!"

"What?"

"That he's an angel, you dumb tall noodle, does he knows you're aware he's an angel?"

"Even if I wasn't, you would've given that away by now, don't you think?"

They both freeze, turning towards the door. Renjun is standing there, quite nonchalantly for someone who's just been outed as a millenary mythical creature, and shaking the by now empty cup of caramel macchiato.

"This was really good," he says, nodding towards Yukhei. "Can I have some more?"

"Maybe later," Yukhei answers, at the same time Kun says, "It's not really good for your health," because apparently not even the holy fear of angels can stop him from babying someone else.

"You're the one who's in charge here, then?" Renjun asks, eyeing the two of them.

Yukhei sends a panicked look at Kun, shaking his eyes to get him to say no, no, absolutely no, but Kun shoots him a glare and answers, "Yes, I'm Qian Kun, and this is my house so I'm technically in charge."

Renjun blinks as he digests the information in the same way he has digested the egg waffle and the caramel macchiato, slow and focused, like it was his first time. And it probably was. They don't have egg waffles and caramel macchiatos in Heaven, Yukhei supposes, and they probably don't have Kuns either if the way Renjun frowns a little is anything to go by.

"What should I do," he asks, slowly, stealing the quickest glance at Yukhei before he turns towards Kun again, "for you to let me stay here?"

Kun takes the tiny angel in, the shadow of a smile in his face - and everyone would find it reassuring, but Yukhei knows it's just the foreshadow of the hysterical laugh bubbling in his throat - and then sends Yukhei a glare that spells murder.

"Why would you want to stay here?" he asks in the end, and Renjun frowns a little again, in his little, confused human body, and says, "I don't have anywhere else to go."

And this is, in short words, how they ended up adopting an angel.

~

The house is tiny, the room is tiny, the mattress Yukhei has spread on the floor is also tiny. Renjun's body is now incommensurably tiny, made for a tiny, tiny world, a finite world, with a beginning and an end. Renjun used to live in a space so big it exceeded the meaning of space itself, a limitless darkness sieged by an eternal cold, there where even matter is rarefied and the soul of the world is the most feeble. Renjun used to be bigger than even that.

Now though, now even this tiny mattress, in this room, in this tiny, crowded house, feels too big for Renjun's tiny body, and Renjun's tiny body feels too big for his tiny soul.

The floor is cold. Cold. A feeling. A foreign feeling, exploding like a storm on Renjun's feet, like countless tiny needles prickling his skin. The body he's inhabitating keeps within itself a trace of concepts that are foreign to an angel - cold, dark, light, loneliness.

Renjun opens the door, slowly, surprised at the way he creaks under the pressure of his fingers. He knows, somehow, that both Kun and Yukhei have heard him, but no one comes to scold him so he just tiptoes down the dark corridor, his steps light and fast. 

Yukhei doesn't say anything when Renjun slips under the blanket with him. He's awake, though his eyes are still closed, but he just moves to the side to accommodate Renjun better and pulls the blanket over him, shielding him from the cold of the winter night.

Annoyance bubbles in Renjun's chest at the thought of this human, a mere human, an inferior creature made of mud and blood and sin, thinking he can protect an angel. Renjun could blast this man to ashes right here, in his tiny house, for his arrogance. He almost does. But maybe it's the cold, maybe it's the residual humanity of this frail, little body, the last reminescence of the soul inhabiting it - he was a nice boy, Renjun likes to think he would've gone to heaven, if heaven was still a thing. Maybe it's the fact that the universe is dying, maybe it's the swan song of all the things, maybe it's the weight of entropy. Maybe it's the egg waffle he ate a couple of hours ago. A nice human gave it to him.

Renjun leans his forehead against Yukhei's shoulder, shuffles a little closer, basking in his body warmth. He falls asleep like a baby on his first night on earth, peacefully.

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on twitter @aprilclaws or leave me a kudos or a [kofi](https://ko-fi.com/aprilclash) if you enjoyed ♥


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